Academy Early Career Award for twelve young researchers

The laureates were chosen by a jury of fellow scientists in four Academy science domains: Humanities; Behavioural Sciences, Social Sciences and Law; Medical, Medical, Biomedical and Health Sciences; and Natural Sciences and Technology. For example, they explore the promise of artificial intelligence for discovering new medicines; inclusive historiography; new legislation needed to manage digitalisation; or improving prenatal testing.

The laureates

Humanities

Marrigje Paijmans

Assistant professor in Dutch literature, University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities

Marrigje Paijmans researches seventeenth-century Dutch literature. In doing so, she draws on contemporary theories of colonialism and ecology. She bridges the gap between the historical and contemporary imagination and analyses how images of the seventeenth century carry over into our own times, for instance in Dutch identity. Her aim is to highlight marginalised voices in texts such as Bredero's Moortje or Surinamese plantation poetry and show how historical literature can contribute to inclusive and diverse historiography.

Janric van Rookhuijzen

Postdoctoral researcher in ancient history and culture, Utrecht University, as of 1 December 2022 Radboud University, Radboud Institute for Culture & History

Janric van Rookhuijzen has used innovative research of historical and archaeological sources to show that the world-famous temples on the Acropolis may have had different functions and names than previously thought. For example, what we know as the Parthenon (‘Virgin House’) was called the Hekatompedon (‘Temple of 100 feet’) by the ancient Greeks themselves. Van Rookhuijzen also examines the Acropolis as a monumental symbol of Greece, Europe and what is called ‘western civilisation’. It appears that this status is linked to negative stereotyping of eastern peoples such as the Persians and the Turks.

Ingrid de Zwarte

Assistant professor in agricultural and environmental history, Wageningen University & Research, Department of Social Sciences

How is famine possible in a world of plenty? And why does warfare often involve food shortages? These issues are central to Ingrid de Zwarte's research at the intersection of history and interdisciplinary famine studies. Through extensive archival research, she analyses the many ways in which food and hunger have been used as weapons of war, but also how hunger mobilises people into resistance and self-organisation. Her ambition is to deepen and broaden the dialogue between science, society and politics on today’s major global food challenges.

Behavioural Sciences, Social Sciences and Law

Eddie Brummelman

Associate professor of orthopedagogy, University of Amsterdam, Department of Pedagogical and Educational Sciences

Children develop a self-image at an early age. Who am I? What do others think of me? And what do I think of myself? Eddie Brummelman examines how this self-image comes about and what consequences it has. He works at the intersection of pedagogy, psychology and educational science and uses experimental, longitudinal and observational research with children, parents and teachers. He is currently investigating how inequality in education shapes children’s self-image, causing those from disadvantaged families to develop a negative image of themselves and their talents.

Sanne Kruikemeier

Professor of digital media and society, Wageningen University & Research, Department of Strategic Communications

Sanne Kruikemeier examines the impact of online communication on individuals and society. Her focus includes how political parties campaign on social media, and its impact on political opinion formation, polarisation and voting behaviour. Kruikemeier has published on data-driven political targeting, how citizens and governments deal with privacy, news consumption and digital journalism. In doing so, she also looks at what it means when people inform themselves one-sidedly, or see a lot of misinformation, or avoid the news.

Bart van der Sloot

Associate professor of privacy and big data, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law School

Bart van der Sloot conducts research at the intersection of law, technology and society. For example, he looks at the growing power of tech companies, the liability of internet platforms and hosting companies, and the threat that fake news poses to democracy. Should deepfake technology be banned? And should citizens be given a legally enforceable right to stop being haunted by their digital shadow? With his dual background in law and philosophy, Van der Sloot analyses the extent to which new legislation is needed to manage technological developments.

Medical, Biomedical and Health Sciences

Sophie Veldhuijzen van Zanten

Physician in training and university researcher, Erasmus Medical Centre, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine

Sophie Veldhuijzen van Zanten is a physician, epidemiologist and researcher. She focuses on improving the diagnosis and treatment of tumours of the central nervous system in adults and children. Her research focuses on the ‘theranostic principle’, a new development in fighting cancer using nuclear radiation to diagnose and treat cancer simultaneously. In addition, Veldhuijzen van Zanten applies advanced imaging techniques and previously unexplored administration routes. This particular combination has led to significant improvements and new possibilities in the care of patients with various types of tumours for which no curative treatment so far exists.

Annemieke Witteveen

Assistant professor in personalised E-health technology for oncology, University of Twente, Biomedical Signals and Systems Group

Annemieke Witteveen’s research aims at improving the quality of life after cancer. For this purpose, she develops models for personal prediction, monitoring and recommendations for late effects after cancer. An example is an online model to predict the risk of breast cancer recurrence that is used in hospitals on a daily basis. She leads several projects relating to eHealth technology, including on the optimal treatment of cancer-related fatigue, smart monitoring, and the influence of lifestyle on late effects after cancer.

Masoud Zamani Esteki

Associate professor of clinical genetics, Maastricht University Medical Center, Laboratory of Cellular Genomics Medicine

Masoud Zamani Esteki focuses on improving reproductive health. His field of work is located at the intersection of molecular and medical genetics, bioinformatics and artificial intelligence. He devises methods to better understand why we are born genetically normal, despite possibly possessing genetically abnormal cells during our embryonic development. These methods can be used, for example, in preimplantation genetic testing to improve embryo selection in parents who are carriers of serious hereditary diseases. They are also relevant for non-invasive prenatal testing for chromosomal abnormalities, by taking blood samples from pregnant women.

Natural Sciences and Technology

Kathryn Barry

Assistant professor in ecology and biodiversity, Utrecht University

Two current urgent ecological crises reinforce each other: the climate crisis and the loss of biodiversity. Kathryn Barry examines the effect of those two intertwined crises on ecosystem functioning. Using experiments and models, she seeks to unravel grassland and forest processes and patterns to predict future scenarios. Her focus is on the diversity of plant interactions that take place below ground. A better understanding can help us mitigate the effects of climate change and make ecosystems more resilient in our rapidly changing world.

Francesca Grisoni

Associate professor of biomedical engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Molecular Machine Learning Group and Chemical Biology Group

Francesca Grisoni and her team are developing new methods to apply artificial intelligence to molecular sciences. Her aim is to be able to make new, smarter drugs. Discovering them is a challenge because there are too many possibilities. The ‘chemical universe’ includes more than 1060 different molecules – far more than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. To test all of those for their usability is beyond humans. Artificial intelligence offers promising opportunities to efficiently traverse a huge amount of complex molecular data and distil relevant information.

Bas Overvelde

Group leader Soft Robotic Matter Group, AMOLF and associate professor Eindhoven University of Technology

Bas Overvelde researches soft robots made of resilient and ‘intelligent’ material. That softness offers a solution in places where robots need to handle fragile objects such as fruit, or inside the human body. For example, Overvelde is working on developing a soft artificial heart, which works in a more natural way than existing artificial hearts. By combining experimental, computational and analytical methods, he aims to create robots without a centrally controlled computer, which can move and react to their environment thanks to built-in reflexes in their robot bodies.

The award

The Academy Early Career Award consists of a monetary award of EUR 15,000 made available from the Academy Fund. The laureates are free to spend this award on their research careers as they see fit.

All laureates will also receive the work of art Extended Jewellery by Laura Klinkenberg.

The award ceremony

The Academy Early Career Awards will be presented during a celebratory event at the Trippenhuis Building on 14 February 2023.

Press contact

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